All I'm saying is that a mob finding Person A beating Person B, they tend to split them up and start beating on Person A to give them a taste of their own medicine. This seems similar -- if you find Person A beating Person B you may not believe Person B attacked Person A, because A is so obviously kicking the snot out of B.
Again, I am NOT condoning their behavior. I'm trying to figure out what on earth would posses them to do this. If I came across one person beating up another, I would immediately cast the person being beat up as the victim. I wouldn't start beating on the aggressor (but I'd want to!) and it probably would take some convincing for me to believe that the person who I originally cast as the aggressor was, in fact, the victim.
(FWIW in real life when it's happened, I try to help separate them if I can and then move on, not actually wanting to get involved in the who said what debate.)
Point being, it's not human nature to come across a victim of sexual assault and beat up on her. So I'm trying to figure out the facts from the hype. I believe that sexual assault happened, a woman tried to defend herself, and that all a crowd saw was one person beating on another.
Which begs another question -- how much self defense is enough? If you get the attacker down, and run away, they could get up and chase after you. Should you make sure they stay down by beating them unconscious? To the death? It's not an easy question.
The other question is that if this is indeed the "rape trail" are there any of those "campus blue lights" around to call the campus police? She may have been acting on instinct and not given thought to running towards one of those, which is perfectly reasonable. If I was walking along a "rape trail" and found a woman beating up a man, I wouldn't necessarily assume she was acting in self-defense -- I'd probably assume that she was beating the snot out of him for no reason, because I'd *seen* no reason.
(in the past when I've seen fights, my thoughts go towards breaking it up, not helping the original "who said what" issue, but I do have visceral sympathy for what I perceive is the victim, even though my brain knows that the "victim" may not be all he seems).
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Date: 2008-05-07 11:50 am (UTC)Again, I am NOT condoning their behavior. I'm trying to figure out what on earth would posses them to do this. If I came across one person beating up another, I would immediately cast the person being beat up as the victim. I wouldn't start beating on the aggressor (but I'd want to!) and it probably would take some convincing for me to believe that the person who I originally cast as the aggressor was, in fact, the victim.
(FWIW in real life when it's happened, I try to help separate them if I can and then move on, not actually wanting to get involved in the who said what debate.)
Point being, it's not human nature to come across a victim of sexual assault and beat up on her. So I'm trying to figure out the facts from the hype. I believe that sexual assault happened, a woman tried to defend herself, and that all a crowd saw was one person beating on another.
Which begs another question -- how much self defense is enough? If you get the attacker down, and run away, they could get up and chase after you. Should you make sure they stay down by beating them unconscious? To the death? It's not an easy question.
The other question is that if this is indeed the "rape trail" are there any of those "campus blue lights" around to call the campus police? She may have been acting on instinct and not given thought to running towards one of those, which is perfectly reasonable. If I was walking along a "rape trail" and found a woman beating up a man, I wouldn't necessarily assume she was acting in self-defense -- I'd probably assume that she was beating the snot out of him for no reason, because I'd *seen* no reason.
(in the past when I've seen fights, my thoughts go towards breaking it up, not helping the original "who said what" issue, but I do have visceral sympathy for what I perceive is the victim, even though my brain knows that the "victim" may not be all he seems).